According to an article posted today on Associated Press, 87,215 Iraqis have died since 2005, and more than 110,600 since 2003.

The number is a minimum count of violent deaths. The official who provided the data to the AP, on condition of anonymity because of its sensitivity, estimated the actual number of deaths at 10 to 20 percent higher because of thousands who are still missing and civilians who were buried in the chaos of war without official records.

The data obtained by the AP measure only violent deaths – people killed in attacks such as the shootings, bombings, mortar attacks and beheadings that have ravaged Iraq. It excluded indirect factors such as damage to infrastructure, health care and stress that caused thousands more to die.

When will the violence end? Well although Obama has stated he would like to get most troops out by August of 2010, he is not making too much progress. There are 142,000 troops in Iraq now, and he still wants 35,000 to 50,000 more troops to remain in Iraq in hopes of withdrawing them by the end of 2011 to comply with the Status of Forces Agreement that the Bush administration had signed with the Iraq’s government. “In hopes of” is the key phrase. It is doubtful that he will actually accomplish this. What will probably happen is he will ‘realize’ that he made the wrong decision and call for thousands more troops sent to Iraq.

I do not believe that the Obama administration will be able to stick with this schedule. Given how difficult conditions are on the ground in Iraq I would be surprised if they were able to pull this off without any modifications.

John McCain, if you remember, had said 50 or even 100 more years in Iraq would be fine with him:

So the war isn’t ending anytime soon. 2012 at the earliest, but I don’t think that will happen. Do you trust the government enough to think that they will get all troops out by 2012?

What is this? Banning a car color? Even if it isn’t approved, this is outrageous! I mean yes, I know that the cars may have to work harder, but it will have been the car that someone chose. Why does the government need to be involved in choosing car colors for the people? Don’t they have anything better to do?

Well, here is the video:

What happened to “This is America. It’s a free country.”? No free country would say you can’t have a black car. This is just crazy!

It’s becoming a disturbingly familiar scene in America – aggressive, overbearing and mentally unstable cops who think that it is an arrestable offense not to obey their every order – harassing citizens who have done absolutely nothing wrong.

The latest example comes from El Paso, Texas, where a local ABC news reporter and his cameraman were arrested simply for something they routinely do every day as part of their job – filming traffic incidents.

The reporters, Darren Hunt and photojournalist Ric DuPont, were standing behind a barrier well away from the car wreck but were quickly approached by the cop – Sgt. Ramirez – who immediately shouted that they had to leave.

As the video shows, despite the fact that the reporters start to back away towards their truck, the cop runs after them after one of them dares to speak – reminding the officer that America is supposed to be a free country with freedom of the press and that the cameraman “can shoot if he wants to”.

The cop then grabs Hunt by his pants and threatens to arrest him, shouting, “I gave you an order,” with the reporter protesting, “I didn’t do anything.”

Presumably, the cop thinks that it is illegal and therefore an arrestable offense not to follow any order given by a police officer – or even worse – because the reporters were actually following his order – the cop thinks its an arrestable offense merely to verbally disagree with a police officer.

It ends up with the reporters getting arrested, and then Sgt. Ramirez was put on leave for an investigation. This cop was way out of line.

This is yet another incident of cop corruption, where the police have a different vision of the law in mind.

The article then goes onto say:

These scenes are becoming commonplace in America. Something has gone seriously wrong somewhere along the line with police training, a fact highlighted by the recent MIAC and Homeland Security reports, which revealed that police are being trained that American citizens who are merely knowledgeable about their rights under the U.S. constitution are considered a threat and potential terrorists.

What happened to American values? What happened to freedom of the press? At least no one was tasered this time.